Narrator: Every colored pencil starts off like this: bright, powdery pigment. But it's the secret recipe for transforming these pigments into colorful cores that sets professional pencils apart from student-grade ones. Every ingredient, from pigments to waxes and oils and even the wood, is carefully chosen to make these pencils perform better on paper. And artists are often willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for this level of performance. A set of 120 Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils costs $350, 14 times as much as a similar box of Crayola colored pencils. And some brands price their sets at over $550. But professionals say that compared to cheaper alternatives like Crayola, the difference in quality is glaring. It's quite chalky and waxy in comparison to this, which has taken so many more layers. Narrator: Making high-quality colored pencils involves more science than art.

So, how did chemists and engineers perfect them? And why are they so expensive? At Faber-Castell's factory in Stein, Germany, workers churn out a whopping 2.3 billion pencils a year. Making them takes a surprising amount of precision, starting with these, the pigments. Just like people, the particles of each pigment have their own distinct personality and behavior. Some are rough and edgy and scratch across the paper, while others are smooth and silky. But size also matters, down to the micrometer. Faber-Castell says ideally, 90% of the pigment particles should have a diameter of less than 40 micrometers. It says this is perfect for creating a core with a consistent texture and vibrant color that applies smoothly. Narrator: Balancing the pigments' behavior requires adjusting the other ingredients. Unlike cheaper alternatives, professional colored pencils have a lot more pigment than filler, so it's important

that the balance of ingredients is just right. The ingredients are top secret, but Gerhard Lugert, a chemist at Faber-Castell, told Business Insider it's a specific combination of oils, waxes, and fillers that binds the pigments. The result is this mixture: dough-like clumps of color. But each color has a bespoke formula because not all pigments are created equal. Narrator: After the mysterious blend of waxes, oils, and fillers is mixed with the pigment, it's pushed through this high-pressure machine. The result: identical pencil-length cylindrical cores. Workers bake the cores in batches to harden them. Then, they dip the dry cores in a melted mixture of waxes and fatty acid derivatives. Faber-Castell's colored-pencil cores are 3.8 millimeters in diameter, making them less likely to break compared to Crayola's 3.3-millimeter cores.

The company randomly tests cores from each batch to make sure they won't break under pressure. Quality testers apply pressure to the cores at a 60-degree angle. They shouldn't break until the force is at least 3.3 kilograms. The core's performance is also scrutinized with smear tests like this one. Narrator: Pencil cores made by different brands each have their own characteristics. The wax base of Caran d'Ache's Luminance pencils is soft, so the color melts into the paper. That makes them great for creating gradients. Faber-Castell's colored pencils, on the other hand, have a harder core, so they're best for fine lines and realistic details. Even the wood encasing the cores of professional-grade pencils is carefully considered. A pencil's wood determines how long the pencil will last and how well it will sharpen. Narrator: At the factory, the cedar is cut into planks,

which are stored for months until they're dry. Grooves are milled into the wood, and the cores are slotted into the planks. Another identical plank is glued on top, and they're pressed together before the next machine cuts them into perfect pencils. But the pencils shouldn't just perform well. They must also look and feel expensive. Workers mix dyes to the exact color of the cores to create a water-based varnish for the outside of the pencils. Another machine coats each pencil with this varnish. The pencils are then stamped with the company's branding, and the end caps are dipped again, rounding out the top of the pencil. Every step of the way, the pencils are checked for visual defects, like chips and varnish irregularities, and the faulty ones are removed. Bethany: My collection of pencils now is probably worth, I would say, about £600, £700. Narrator: That's Bethany Vere,

and she knows a thing or two about colored pencils. She has about 400 high-end ones, which she uses to make realistic animal portraits that can sell for up to $6,500. And each brand and each type of pencil works, and they complement each other so well. So I tend to use the Caran d'Ache Luminance because they're wax-based, so it creates a really lovely, smooth, buttery feel to the surface. And then over the top, I can go in with the Polychromos. You can sharpen them to a fine point. They're super great for detail. Narrator: Bethany has big expectations for these pricey brands when it comes to blendability. Blendability in the world of colored pencils means that the artist can layer colors over one another directly on the paper, creating gradients without sharp lines. The colors should transition smoothly. While some colored-pencil artists might use blending tools and solvents,

Bethany prefers to create a blending effect through layering. So, layering and creating the subtle changes, especially with an equestrian portrait, we think about the contours of a horse's face. There's no harsh lines, so the only way we can do that is by creating a lot of pigment on the paper. We do that through layering. Narrator: She says she can't accomplish the same look with cheaper colored pencils. These are Crayola colored pencils, which I think we used to have at school, and obviously I think you can pick these up from most supermarkets or local stationery stores. Narrator: She's demonstrating the difference with swatches. First up: Crayola. The one thing I'm really, really aware of is they're very kind of chalky. I'm quickly realizing whilst doing this, is that I'm having to use a lot of pressure and a lot of layers to really make this

a little bit more blendable. Narrator: Too many layers can create what's called a wax bloom, which Bethany doesn't want. Bethany: Eventually, when you press quite hard, you're not really going to be able to layer that much more pencil over the top. And already, it's becoming — it feels a little bit slippery underhand because I'm adding quite a lot of layers. Narrator: Slippery, waxy layers limit how much gradation Bethany can achieve. With expensive pencils, she doesn't have that problem. Bethany: And then, even despite the fact that I'm doing this, I can still go over with more layers. And if I was to take a little bit of black, whereas on here, where you can see how scratchy that is, if I use the same light pressure, it just blends so beautifully into whatever we've put down underneath. Narrator: Bethany's work on animal portraits

often requires her to blend several shades of the same hue, like varying browns in horsehair or dog fur. Compared to cheaper brands, manufacturers of professional-grade colored pencils offer a much wider variety of shades. Bethany: When we've got such vast color choices, it does make it easier to really flip between colors, and you get a lot of sort of subtle, different hues. Whereas a lot of the cheaper pencils, you only get your very box-standard colors. You might get a couple of different shades of a red, but they're all very vibrant. You don't get the neutral colors that you do with these pencils. Narrator: But for artists and their clients, all this effort from pencil producers is pointless if their work doesn't stand the test of time. Bethany: I need to — especially when we're looking at selling our work and selling it to the public and actually charging for the work,

We need to be ensuring that that work is going to last for years to come, and it's not going to discolor, it's not going to fade. It's going to stay as vibrant as the day when we drew it or the day that we completed that portrait. You see, it's super colorful, and I really, really aimed, I wanted to show you this piece because of all the blending that went into it. But you can still see, about five years on, how vibrant the colors are. So obviously, using the professional-grade pencils, even if this was in direct sunlight all the time, it wouldn't fade at all. Is that your portrait? Narrator: The longevity of a color is known as its lightfastness. Faber-Castell uses a star rating where three stars means the color will be preserved with little or no fading for 100 years in museum-like conditions. Almost all of the colored pencils the company offers

in its professional lines are three stars. Each color receives a rating through a specialized lightfastness test. Narrator: Faber-Castell says perfecting texture, durability, and lightfastness for its Polychromos line costs five times more than producing its student-grade pencils. All this R&D translates to a higher price tag, but according to Faber-Castell, the extra effort is worth it. Narrator: Bethany appreciates this attention to detail because it allows her to create the realistic portraits she's built a business on. That's why she'll never go back to cheaper alternatives. Bethany: If you were to just do what I did and bought a couple of pencils at the start, then, obviously, I think that can keep the cost down. However, as my collection has grown and as I've got more confident with the medium, obviously, that's naturally led for me to expand the collection,

which is now, as I said, worth a fair few hundred. And to me and the work I create now, I couldn't be without the entirety of my collection.

Why Professional Colored Pencils Are So Expensive | So Expensive | Business Insider

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